What is the difference between a "character development" session and a "filler" session? I want to know what to avoid

You're talking crazy, OP. You're being weird and talking about things that don't exist.

Filler is what happens when your players refuse to grasp any of the hooks.

Character development is what happens when players are forced to make decisions that define the character, even if there aren't any dice involved.

youtube.com/watch?v=F8CJezPcCuc

I'll do you one better.

suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/3052712/

Man, that's always a nice thing to be reminded of.

Are you a retard?
Filler is not a concept that applies to rpgs. They are not books, movies or series.
If a session was fun then it was meaningful.

No, you retard. You're experiencing a serious disconnect between the meaning of meaningful in the context of this thread and what you think a meaningful session.
Like a previous user stated, a session that's just killing goblins for no reason may be fun, but it's not meaningful in the context of the game.

one important thing to remember is that filler is not filler as long as you and your PCs are having fun

That's not true
But, filler isn't necessarily bad
There's a misconception that filler is a waste of time. It's the padding of time, just like its name implies it fills the spots in a story that would otherwise be empty.
Now, they premise of OP's question is the difference between filler sessions and character development sessions, not if either is bad.

I think you have a really good idea about what filler is, but a terrible concept of what a story should be. A story doesn't have 'empty' sections that need to get filled by nonsense; it moves at exactly the pace that the storytellers dictate.

If a show spends 4 episodes going around in circles, not advancing the plot or providing any depth to the characters or world, it's filler and should be avoided - the writers can skip ahead to a point where the story continues. If it does advance the plot and/or develop characters, it's not 'padding time', it's creating more story.

>A story doesn't have 'empty' sections that need to get filled by nonsense; it moves at exactly the pace that the storytellers dictate.
>the writers can skip ahead to a point where the story continues. If it does advance the plot and/or develop characters, it's not 'padding time', it's creating more story.
You're exactly right - in the context of a non-interactive storyline.
If you're talking about a roleplaying campaign where players might be missing, a break might be needed, the DM might be catching up, or time constraints are limited, filler might be needed.

Fuck that, we're taking an episode to go go-karting. Goku needs to learn to drive.

Last session of my Curse of Strahd game, the focal point of the entire session was our team leader getting some serious PTSD moment. There was only a single combat at the very beginning, which they murderized at the very start. Rest of the session was really just handling the PTSD character's health and talking to NPCs to get some of the "main plot" stuff into order.

Seriously, the session ended with said character ripping her only remaining eye off. So now their team leader is PTSD-ridden AND blind.

The point is. Even though very little happened in the main plot or dungeon delving -side, it was still a session where players were extremely invested to what they were doing.

There's no filler in RPGs. As long as everyone is enjoying themselves, it's all good.

Isn't it right there in the name? A character development session involves character development. It should have one or more clear answers to the question, "How did any of the player's characters develop or change in this session?"

On the other hand, bear in mind that "filler" does not HAVE to be a bad thing, even though it can be. If your players are down for a session where they just screw around, shoot the shit, or enjoy the setting, by all means do that, even if the story doesn't really progress all that much as a result. As long as it's fun, and fun is subjective. I know my players enjoy a well-timed passing-time-at-home kind of session.

>context of the game.
The context is a bunch of people sitting around a table playing a game.
You are not writing a book or irecting a tv series.
Within that context, if everyone had fun then it was meaningful.

Filler, as a concept, is simply not applicable to roleplaying games.

>filler is not a concept that applies to rpgs
Random encounters.
"I talk to the inkeeper"
"Are there any girls there?"
"No, no, user, you must roleplay your trip going to town to buy fresh horses and rations. Down to the very last detail, like whether you buy drink coffee before or after breakfast."

There is nothing wrong with filler sessions. DM's just need to know how to run them properly.

What constitutes properly, then?

This

>moot is anti-skub
I've...been betrayed?

Jesus Christ there used to me so damn many namefags and tripfags.

Over time people got more and more upset about namefags and tripfags that even a tripfag posting an entirely relevant, on-topic post would end up derailing the thread due to the legion of people who would come out to REEEE at them about it, and that's about the point when it went from a small minority of people who hate tripfags because "muh user culture" or "muh social capital" or whatever, to a large majority of people who were just sick of every fucking thread being derailed every time someone insisted on nameposting when the thread didn't actually need it for a real reason.

It's one of the few times a mass shitposting campaign by a relative minority actually improved a board or Veeky Forums itself

I dunno, the board is pretty verifiably worse since they did that.

I actually liked trips myself. It let me know when to not listen to someone.

I just never really noticed them, not until as describes, people started hounding them en masse to the point where a tripfag posting in a thread was more or less a guaranteed derail, and people just considered any tripfag to automatically be a troll trying to derail the thread.

I never really noticed them either.
It seemed to be entirely a thing uptight faggots got upset about.

>chat room style replies
>reddit spacing
>every other poster is a fucking tripfag

This is why I laugh at people pretending the old days were better and nu-Veeky Forums is worse. It really isn't, not unless your only memories of those days are cherrypicked screenshots of the occasional great thread, forgetting the sea of shit that they panned out of.

It's like people who think music was better in [insert preferred decade] because they only listen to the greatest and most fondly-remembered hits of that decade. or even worse, because the complexity of popular music has, mathematically, been proven to go down over time, so they at least have some points.

>calling it reddit spacing despite predating reddit
>bitching about tripfags
>nu-Veeky Forums
Hey, you're that guy that ruined it for everybody! GET HIM!

I was doing it sarcastically, you fucking retard. Do I really need to hold your hand and explain this for you? I'm intentionally using the lingo of people bitching about how much better things were in the old days to mock them for it.

But as long as we're here, reddit was founded in 2005, that thread is from 2008.

It still predates reddit, user. And you're still the guy who RUINED IT FOR EVERYBODY.

>2008 predates 2005

user, double spacing has in fact existed for hundreds of years.

...

It's all filler for the eventual heat death of the universe.

Maybe thousands.

You are now aware that this style has been used in print for god knows how fucking long before the internet was even a thing in someone's imagination.

Because surprise: breaking up text makes it more readable.